Thwarted...

Kids want to learn.  Even at a bad American public school, there will still be some kids who manage to learn and develop educationally.  How bad are the schools in England?

It was a daring bid for freedom that could have come straight out of The Great Escape or The Colditz Story.

But the intrepid five who attempted to tunnel under a spike-topped 12ft metal fence using nothing more than pilfered cutlery were not plucky PoWs fleeing the Nazis – but Nottingham schoolboys trying to break out of their city academy.

If any of the youngsters tasted liberty, however, it was short- lived as the culprits were soon rounded up, and the already imposing security measures tightened up even further to thwart future escape efforts.

I ceased being a fan of public school in a little hell hole, known by some as third grade.  It was so bad that I would have run away if it hadn't been for the beating my father would have given me for skipping school.  So I'm sympathetic to wanting to get out of school.

How bad is it that you have to tunnel out?

Tracey Phillipson, whose daughter is a Year 9 pupil, said: ‘The fencing with security signs all over it does make it look a bit more like a prison than a school and I guess to some pupils that’s a challenge.'

Um, yeah it does look like a prison or at least a half way house.

Housewife Jamila Khaliq, whose home backs onto the school playing fields, said of the escape bid: ‘I can’t believe they would even try such a thing. Since they put in the new fencing, we have all thought it was impossible for any pupil to get out.

It's a school lady, not Alcatraz.  Security fences and roaming patrols to keep kids in?  In a saner time parents wanted their kids to stay out of places with guards.

I expect sometime in the next six weeks the Obama administration will add a provision to the Common Core requiring American schools to build fences and guard towers around campus.  Too bad he can't be bothered to do the same thing on our southern boarder.